Personal computers and business computers are continually attacked by trojans, spyware, and adware, collectively referred to as “malware” or “pestware.” These types of programs generally act to gather information about a person or organization—often without the person or organization's knowledge. Some pestware is highly malicious. Other pestware is non-malicious but may cause issues with privacy or system performance. And yet other pestware is actual beneficial or wanted by the user. Wanted pestware is sometimes not characterized as “pestware” or “spyware.” But, unless specified otherwise, “pestware” as used herein refers to any program that collects and/or reports information about a person or an organization and any “watcher processes” related to the pestware.
Software is available to detect pestware, but scanning a system for pestware typically requires a system to look at files stored in a data storage device (e.g., disk) on a file by file basis. This process of scanning files is frequently time consuming, and as a consequence, users must wait a substantial amount of time to find out the results of a system scan. Even worse, some users elect not to perform a system scan because they do not want to, or cannot, wait for a scan to be completed. Accordingly, current software is not always able to scan and remove pestware in a convenient manner and will most certainly not be satisfactory in the future.